mssv at the Raccoon Motel -- September 29.
Friday, September 29, 8 p.m.
Raccoon Motel, 315 East Second Street, Davenport IA
With this month's new release Human Reaction praised by Distorted Sound as "an album that is so experimental" yet "still manages to be an evenly-paced experience that doesn’t crumble under being ‘out there,'" the alternative rockers of mssv headline a September 29 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, the trio a project, initiated in 2019, composed of guitarist Mike Baggetta, bassist Mike Watt, and percussionist Stephen Hodges.
Baggetta was a finalist in the Fish Middleton Jazz Scholarship competition at the East Coast Jazz Festival and was one of seven international guitarists to compete in the Gibson Jazz Guitar Competition at the Montreux Jazz Festival. In Knoxville, the artist began performing completely instrumental improvisational interpretations of Patsy Cline songs, also playing the music of Ornette Coleman, and over the course of his career, Baggetta has performed with the likes of Jerome Harris, David Torn, Darcy James Argue, Satoshi Takeishi, Donny McCaslin, Dominique Eade, and Nels Cline. Watt was described by CMJ New Music as a "seminal post-punk bass player," with readers of NME naming him one of the "40 Greatest Bassists of All Time" and LA Weekly awarding him the number six spot in "The 20 Best Bassists of All Time." And Hodges, who served as percussionist on Smashing Pumpkins' 1998 tour in support of their album Adore, is widely known for his work with Mavis Staples, Tom Waits, T Bone Burnett, Rick Holmstrom, and film director David Lynch, and acted as musical director and composer for Patrick Murphy's 1999 production of Eugène Ionesco's Exit the King starring John C. Reilly.
Regarding their collective history, Baggetta and Watt recorded Wall of Flowers with drummer Jim Keltner, but after releasing it, Keltner admitted to being averse to travel, and Hodges was subsequently brought in to tour the album, having previously worked with Watt on the latter's second solo recording, Contemplating the Engine Room. The resulting trio named themselves mssv and recorded a live album titled Live Flowers. Recorded at Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia in March of 2019, Live Flowers consists largely of songs from Wall of Flowers with "Pink Room" from David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (which Hodges also appeared in), "No One Says Old Man (to the Old Man)" and "Liberty Calls!" from Watt's Contemplating the Engine Room, and a cover of "Fun House" by The Stooges. Since then, mssv released a trio of additional recordings – 2020's Main Steam Stop Valve and Media Kittens / When the Hoarding Has Ended and 2021's The Scott Aicher – prior to this September's Human Reaction, a work that, according to the group's Web site, transforms the musicians into "a heretofore unimagined hybrid of a punk power-trio and a dreamy experimental rock band.”
mssy play their Davenport engagement on September 29 with an additional set by Samuel Locke Ward, admission to the 8 p.m. concert is $15, and tickets are available by visiting TheRaccoonMotel.com.
